It is to be regretted that so much has been forgotten of the early customs and habits of former generations of this locality. For a long time the city grew slowly; in comparatively recent times the farms have been changed into city lots and the occupations and amusements have taken different forms. Even traditions of early customs does not reach much farther back than the beginning of the present century; but, owing to the Dutch tenacity of clinging to inherited customs, it is probable that the manners of eighty and a hundred years ago were not so very different from those of their ancestors, especially as they retained the quiet, simple life of a farming community.
